The Union of Councils is alarmed over the distribution of a history
textbook to Latvian schools that refers to Jews as "Zhids" (an extremely
derogatory slur akin to "kikes") and rehabilitates Nazi-collaborators as
heroes.

The textbook, titled Latvian Eulenspiegel, was written in Latvian
by Janis Karklins, a now-deceased Latvian who immigrated to the U.S. It
contains insulting statements about Jews, Russians, Poles and other
minority ethnic groups in Latvia. Many of the nation's schools-including
the Dubnov Jewish Day School in Riga-received copies of this textbook in
May.

The fact that this xenophobic and antisemitic text was recommended
and distributed by the Ministry of Education calls into question Latvia's
commitment to democratic principles and religious and ethnic pluralism.

Immediate Action Requested

The Union of Councils and its Baltic-American Bureau on Human Rights,
request that you write letters to Latvian President Guntis Ulmanis and
Education Minister Juris Celmins, requesting that these hate-mongering
books be immediately removed from the country's schools and libraries, and
that a more adequate screening process for textbooks be developed. A sample
letter is attached to this alert. The cost of a letter to Riga is 60
cents. The addresses are:

Latvian Eulenspiegel refers to a regional folk-tale character, a jester or
joker. The book contains "terrible insults" about Latvia's minorities,
including Jews, Russians and Poles, according to Mikhail Avrutin, director
of UCSJ's Baltic-American Bureau on Human Rights. Russians are presented
as "primitive, and their speech is full of foul language," according to
Grigory Bikson and Jacov Pliner, both teachers at the Dubnov Jewish Day
School in Riga.

Throughout the book, Jews are referred to only as "Zhids," a derogatory
term. Typical is a passage about a Jew named David Goldbaum, a jeweler who
trades in valuables "taken off the deceased…in order to make them look new,
he rubs off the old engravings and makes new ones." It also presents the
song "Three Zhids," in which the title characters are buried and their
corpses cause "such a stink." The author encourages Latvian schoolchildren
to sing this song.

In addition to deriding ethnic minority groups, Latvian Eulenspiegel
rehabilitates participants in the Jewish genocide as war heroes. Latvian
Herbert Cukurs is portrayed simply as a formidable pilot who flew to Gambia
and Japan in his homemade plane before he was shot down by "agents of the
Israeli Secret Agency." Unmentioned is the fact that Cukurs was a
notorious Nazi-collaborator who participated in the extermination of Jewish
prisoners-including infants-in the Riga ghetto.

This is the second time in two years that the Latvian government has
sparked controversy over the distribution of a schoolbook. In 1995,
President Ulmanis presented a book by Nazi collaborator and Latvian
nationalist Adolph Shilde to a school. Ulmanis later voiced his regret at
having endorsed the book.

While we applaud Latvia's recent steps in moving towards democracy, we are
shocked and concerned by your Ministry of Education's recent distribution
of a history textbook, Latvisu Pucesspigelis, to your nation's schools.
This book portrays Jews, Russians, and other ethnic minorities in a
shameful and hateful way. Throughout the book, Jews are referred to as
"Zhids," a very derogatory term, and they are presented as being greedy and
dishonest. Furthermore, certain Nazi-collaborators who participated in the
extermination of helpless Jewish children are depicted as heroes; their
atrocious acts are either ignored or justified.

Latvian children should not be encouraged to read such xenophobic and
derogatory books. The "lesson" they learn from this "history" book is that
certain people should be treated as less than human. Instead, we urge you
to institute comprehensive educational approaches that teach tolerance and
respect for all ethnicities and minorities. We encourage you to continue
to develop a ciriculum of pluralism and human rights-the principles of
democratic societies.

We urge you to direct the Ministry of Education to recall these textbooks
from the schools and to instruct teachers to not use them in their
classrooms. Furthermore, we urge you to direct the Ministry of Education
to develop an evaluation process for all textbooks so that such an incident
will not be repeated in the future.

At such a critical juncture in the development of Latvia's democracy, we
urge you to respond quickly to this grave incident.